


The Crossing

by abelrunner



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, Hannigram - Freeform, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Gore, Vomiting, dark!Will, implied Murder Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abelrunner/pseuds/abelrunner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will finds himself giving in to his homicidal urges... and to something else as well...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crossing

**Author's Note:**

> This turned into Hannigram. I did not intend it to be Hannigram. OH WELL.

Will takes out his knife and cuts down the center in silence, the sounds of the forest seeping in through the open windows and giving the whole thing a rather surreal quality.

It’s not Garrett Jacob Hobbs’ cabin. He’s not _that_ far gone. But it’s a bit too similar; enough that, in his quieter moments, Will stops and has to wonder...

He removes the guts from the crotch up, putting what Hannibal said he needed for the party the next day to one side and putting what they’d save for later to the other. 

He’s stopped worrying about why it’s so easy to gut a person. Hannibal hasn’t had to hear about that for awhile. If that surprises him, he doesn’t say.

The first time this “arrangement” had been pursued, Hannibal had pointed out that gutting a human was different from gutting a fish. He’d stood behind Will and guided the hand that held the knife in a move that was so reminiscent of the pottery scene from Ghost that Will had stumbled out of the room, laughing hysterically, leaving Hannibal with a half-gutted corpse and an indignant expression.

“ _Rude_ , Will.” He’d said later, over dinner, and Will had only laughed more because even though the threat was now explicit, Hannibal would never, _could_ never, kill Will. Maybe a month before, but now? 

Now, Hannibal is as bound to Will as Will is to Hannibal. They hold each other’s secrets, and that is something that clearly delights the strange psychiatrist.

It is obviously an event for him to quietly hand Will a business card as a “suggestion”. That’s all the cards have ever been: “suggestions”. Not commands, Hannibal has assured him, no I’m not _telling_ you to do this.

Like so many things with Hannibal, that assurance is always a double-edged sword.

_He’s not controlling me._

_I’m making this choice._

\--

He can’t remember the first person he killed. The waves of killers in his mind had been wearing away at his forts, pushing at the boundaries, forcing themselves on him, in him.. One too many cracks from Zeller, one too many knowing smirks from Lounds, and then...

He found himself on Hannibal’s doorstep, staring into the psychiatrist’s stunned face. 

He looked down.

_blood_

Blood covered his jacket, his shirt, his pants, his shoes. He was suddenly aware of the blood on his face, drying; the blood in his hair, heavy. 

His breaths caught; he suddenly felt cold and ill.

Hannibal’s hand snapped out, grabbed his shirt and hauled him into the house. Will stumbled slightly as he was pulled into the foyer, and dimly heard the door close, the lock click.

“Will.” 

Will couldn’t breathe...

“ _Will!_ ”

Will threw up. He half-thought pieces would come up; ears and fingers and skin. But it was just lunch and dinner, spattered over the wood of Hannibal’s foyer.

Hannibal grabbed him and dragged him into the kitchen, leading him the sink where he finished emptying his guts as Hannibal ran the heel of his hand along his spine like a mother comforting a child. Will slumped, the painful dry heaves slowly ceasing and becoming sobs, and he heard the tap run for a moment, and then something cool and wet wiped at his face, washing off drool and blood and sweat and tears. It was terribly soothing, and Will just closed his eyes and let it happen.

Then the cloth was gone, and Hannibal pulled Will’s hands into the sink and ran water over them. Will watched dully for a few moments as Hannibal began washing the half-dried blood away, reddish water swirling down the drain.

“You can’t...” Will said, his voice sounding very small and far away. “Evidence...”

“Yes, Will.” Hannibal replied, slow and pointed. “Evidence.”

_He’s not going to turn me in._

“Will, we’re going to have to get you into the bath. And these clothes... I can try to wash them, but...” Will nodded mechanically, his mind too hazy to do anything else but follow the dangerous path Hannibal was laying out. 

Hannibal led Will into a part of the house he’d never been in, into a nice bathroom with a large bath and an enormous mirror.

Will stared into it as Hannibal began to run the bathwater.

He looked like a madman.

Like some kind of ax murderer from a slasher film.

_Be more careful next time._

Will couldn’t tell if the little voice that whispered that in his mind was Garrett Jacob Hobbs’ or his own. 

“Will.” Hannibal’s hands cupped Will’s cheeks and took his attention from the mirror. “I’m going to go clean the foyer. Put your clothing to the side and take your time in the bath. Make sure you don’t leave any traces, understood?” Will nodded because it was the only thing he could do. 

A few minutes later, after slowly taking off his jacket, shoes shirt, pants, socks, underwear, he slid into the bath. The water began to take on a rusty tinge, and he scrubbed at his skin viciously, until the stains were gone and the water was more blood than anything. 

He drained the tub and ran more water, this time hot enough to sear. He let the pain seep into him, drag him into something resembling coherency. He let himself slip down beneath the surface and began running his fingers through his hair, as if he was trying to scrub away thoughts and memories. 

He screamed and rose before he inhaled the bloody water. 

Hannibal was standing in the doorway when he breached the surface, holding some clothing and eyeing the reddish puddles on the floor. 

“Sorry.” Will said. “I can clean that up when-” 

“No, I’ll get it.” Hannibal interrupted smoothly as he placed the clothing on the counter. “These are my clothes, so they might be a big large, but they’ll suffice. I’ll try to wash these,” he picked up the pile of clothing on the ground, still sodden with blood, and eyed the stain they left with mild irritation. “This... certainly wasn’t clean.” 

Will sunk deeper in the warm water, pondering what would happen if he just slid beneath the water and started breathing in. Would Hannibal grab him, try to bring him back? Or would he accept the decision? 

Probably the former. 

“I can’t remember.” He said, sounding far too small and pathetic. Hannibal looked at him with an expression that made Will mildly uncomfortable. 

“What can’t you remember, Will?” He asked. 

“Anything.” He looked down at his hands; they floated in the bathwater, surrounded by the remnants of blood he couldn’t recall spilling. “I can’t remember what I did. I can’t remember who I killed. I can’t remember how or where...” 

Hannibal stared, but Will got the impression that he was thinking and just happened to be looking at Will as he did so. Will let him think. 

“Do you remember why?” He asked at last. Will swallowed. 

“They were knocking down my door.” 

“So it was self-defense-” 

“Not... no.” Will lifted his hands out of the water and covered his face, trying to explain, to vocalize things he didn’t think he’d ever need to. “I couldn’t remember my name.” Hannibal said nothing, so Will forced himself to go on. “It was like... waves on a cliff. They were wearing me down; I couldn’t _remember_...” 

“So you differentiated yourself the only way you could,” Hannibal said quietly. “By establishing your own identity separate from theirs.” 

“This is my design.” Will said in a strangled attempt at a joke. It hung in the air like a fog. “Why haven’t you called Jack?” 

“The same reason I didn’t call him when this happened to Abigail.” Hannibal answered. 

_This didn’t happen to Abigail,_ Will thought with almost enough energy to be angry. _She was attacked and defended herself; fight or flight. I don’t know what this was, but it wasn’t that._

“Because I care about you.” 

Will didn’t know how to respond to that. 

\-- 

Will sets aside the lungs and starts carefully removing the heart. 

Hannibal doesn’t need to say he’s a murderer. Once the scales fall from Will’s eyes, he sees. It’s just that after everything, he can’t bring himself to care, to do anything about it. The moral high ground caved in under his feet long ago anyway; what right does he have to protest, to complain? 

So turning Hannibal in becomes such a non-issue that neither of them bring it up, just as neither openly discuss Hannibal’s own homicidal actions. Will knows, and Hannibal knows Will knows, and that’s enough. 

Will told himself he wasn’t going to do it again. Told Hannibal as well. But Hannibal knows when to prod, when to _suggest_. He knows when the killers circle Will’s mind like wolves; when the waves begin to wear away at the sandstone walls of Will’s forts. A business card, discreetly placed in Will’s jacket pocket without comment. 

An IT consultant; a manager at Best Buy; a nurse at the local hospital. He doesn’t pretend like they deserve to die. He knows why Hannibal took their business card; not the details, maybe, but the general idea. Rather, he tells himself that they don’t deserve to die the way they would at the hands of Hannibal. 

If they have to die (and they do, ultimately; if Will doesn’t kill them then Hannibal will), they will at least die quickly, with some amount of dignity. Their bodies won’t be displayed in some field or abandoned bus for the crime of stepping on Hannibal’s toes or not getting off the phone quickly enough. 

_That_ is how Will justifies it. It suffices. 

He takes the hollow carcass out back, where a large, deep hole waits. He throws the corpse into the hole and starts to bury it, one shovel-full of dirt at a time. 

\-- 

“Are you and Hannibal in a relationship that I should be worried about?” 

Alana’s question came completely out of the blue. Will looked up from his lesson plans and barely kept his jaw from hitting the desktop, the meaning behind her words sinking in. 

“What?” 

She looked.... not exactly angry, but tense. Suspicious. Ready to be angry, ready to be outraged 

“No!” She looked skeptical. “No, of course not. That’s... that’s ridiculous!” 

“Is it?” She asked. “You stay at his house all the time, he serves you dinner nearly every night-” 

“We’re friends!” Will said sharply. “Not.... No. We’re not!” She frowned, and he grew frustrated. It took several careful breaths to keep from snarling or yelling. “Alana, there’s nothing... It’s not like that, I promise.” She didn’t seem entirely convinced, but she nodded anyway. 

“Alright.” 

“You haven’t...” Will swallowed and rolled a pencil between his fingers. “You haven’t had this talk with Hannibal, have you?” 

“No.” Alana’s eyes narrowed again. “Do I need to?” 

“No.” 

“Because, Will, if he was doing that, or even _suggesting_ -” 

“He’s not.” 

“It would be highly unethical-” 

“I know, but he’s not.” 

“And it would not help your mental-” 

“He’s not so it’s fine.” They half-glared at each other, both willing the other to believe, to trust. It was Alana who sighed and shifted, admitting defeat. 

“Alright, Will. I believe you.” 

\-- 

He pats the dirt carefully and then starts covering it with leaves and brush. It won’t be found, not ever, not unless something goes horribly wrong and they know exactly where to look. Hannibal didn’t need to show Will how to hide bodies, -Will was a homicide detective after all- but he’d given a few pointers. 

Will gets the meat into iceboxes, gets the iceboxes in his car and heads to Hannibal’s house. He isn’t been invited to the actual dinner party he’s helping prepare for, but he doesn’t mind. He isn’t a fan of them. Too many people. 

He puts in a CD Hannibal had loaned him earlier that day and lets the Goldburg Variations fill the car. 

\-- 

“Alana Bloom thinks we’re dating.” Will said through a mouthful of salad. Hannibal didn’t look up from his dinner, but smiled. 

“Does she?” He replied, sounding amused. “Will she be rushing through my door with a vivid description of life with a suspended psychiatric license?” Will smirked. 

“No.” 

“What did you tell her?” 

“The truth,” Will said shortly, taking a sip of wine. “We’re not.” 

“Very well.” A pause. “We could, if you wanted.” Will glanced up and found Hannibal taking a sudden interest in his herb garden. Will felt a smile slip onto his face, in spite of it all. 

“That’d be unethical,” he said, mimicking Alana. 

“I’ve been unethical in my relationship towards you for a very long time, Will.” Hannibal pointed out. “It is not exactly ethical to hide a patient’s criminality from the law, destroy evidence...” 

“Kill people, eat their remains, use your patient as a convenient butcher...” Will picked up the thread sardonically, and though Hannibal didn’t appear to appreciate that, he nodded anyway, conceding the point. 

“All things considered, pursuing such a relationship certainly wouldn’t be as outrageous behavior as it would normally be.” He said pointedly and, maybe, just maybe, hopefully. Will shrugged. 

“True, but you’re making a few assumptions.” Hannibal raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh?” 

“You’re assuming that I’m attracted to you, for a start.” Will took a sip of his wine and felt somewhat triumphant as Hannibal’s face went a bit slack. It was a rare thing to score a point in the battle of words against Hannibal Lecter. But the elation was short-lived as Hannibal turned back to his food, his face icing over into an expression that made Will’s stomach churn. 

“I suppose I am.” The conversation stuttered to a halt, and Will suddenly wished he hadn’t said anything. 

\-- 

Will has never been a big classical fan, but he has to admit that it’s soothing. As he makes his way toward Baltimore, he smiles slightly and hums along to the crescendo of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. He feels stable, which is undoubtedly very strange considering he’s just killed and gutted a man, but it’s true. The voices that seep into his thoughts have retreated, and the only dark whispers in his mind are his own. 

He’d rather they not be there at all, but that’s a pipe dream now. 

He makes his way through Baltimore towards Hannibal’s home, leaning back in his chair at the red light and letting his eyes close as the strings and harpsichord washes over him. 

\-- 

Will noticed a coolness descend over his relationship with Hannibal Lecter. His friend doesn’t invite him to dinner quite so often, doesn’t offer quite as many “suggestions”, and their interaction with one another outside of the scheduled appointments dwindles. Normally, the idea of Hannibal having a kind of near-silent temper tantrum would have been somewhat funny, but that was... before. 

Now, it’s just lonely. 

Will decided that he owed his friend an apology. 

But he didn’t get the chance to for quite awhile. 

Another murder. It always made his stomach clench now, to go to a murder scene, but for a different reason than usual. Would it be Hannibal’s work, often showcasing some subtle, personalized touch that only Will would recognize? 

Or would it be one of Will’s, somehow unearthed and exposed? 

Sometimes it was the former, and Hannibal would always smile cheerfully when Will came back to the house, presenting some disturbingly lovely dish that just happened to be made from the exact organ that was missing from the victim. It was never the latter, though the fear was always there. 

This time, it was neither. Just a madman, a madman with an eerie, childlike curiosity, who left his victims cut open like high school science experiments. They’d been alive when they were cut open, and died because the killer had removed organs one at a time. There were other, smaller experiments that the killer had performed. He (or she, as Katz had pointed out) had attempted to skin the fingers on one victim. He or she had tried to remove the eyelids of another. Yet there was no malice; it was not torture done for torture’s sake, but for science. 

The rest had thought it was Hannibal, at first. But it was easy to point out the issues. That the quality of the surgery was that of a layman, than the organs were removed haphazardly. Jack had been disappointed, but it made no difference: Will and the science team were worked to the bone, and Will got about four hours of sleep in the space of as many days. 

He stumbled into Hannibal’s house after getting a phone call. 

“Good afternoon, Will." 

“Oh. Hello." 

“Would you consider coming over for dinner tonight? Perhaps we could discuss the case.” 

“Uh, yeah... Sure.” 

“Are you feeling alright, Will?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll see you in a few hours.” 

So he ended up stumbling into Hannibal’s home at around eight, feeling like death warmed over. And based on Hannibal’s raised eyebrow, he looked it as well. 

“Perhaps you should go rest before dinner,” he said. “There’s time. Go on.” Will was too exhausted to argue. 

He shuffled into the living room like a zombie and collapsed on the sofa, dropping like a rock into a half-sleep almost instantly. The soft sounds of Hannibal cooking in the other room lulled him deeper into a state of totally relaxed apathy, and then they seemed to stop. 

He almost opened his eyes to look towards the kitchen, but the sofa was far too comfortable and he was far too tired to bother. 

He felt a blanket settle over him, and then a soft touch on his forehead, a thumb brushing over his hairline. It was strangely soothing. He probably would have jerked away from the contact any other time, but now he relaxed because of it. 

The touch hadn’t left by the time he slipped into unconsciousness. 

\-- 

It’s rather late when Will pulls up in front of Hannibal’s home, yet the lights are still on. Hannibal is preparing for tomorrow’s preparation; cooking, real cooking, evidently takes a bit more forethought than Will usually gives it. Will gets the iceboxes had heads up to the door, knocking once before going in. He’s had permission to do that for about a month. 

Hannibal looks up as he walks into the kitchen and smiles. 

“Excellent,” he says. “Put them here.” Will stands idly, not at all uncomfortable as Hannibal checks the quality of the meat and makes rather pleased sounds. This makes Will pleased, and not because Hannibal might have sent him back out if they hadn’t been up to his standard. 

Well, not _just_ because of that. 

Hannibal puts away the meat and Will cleans the icebox throughly. As they both come to the end of their tasks, Will prompts, “Rather late, isn’t it?” He doesn’t look up from the sink where he scrubs. 

“Is it?” A beat. “So it is. I suppose that’s enough for tonight.” Will puts the icebox down and finds Hannibal watching him. “Are you staying?” 

Will smiles. 

“That was the plan.” 

\-- 

Will wakes to Hannibal shaking him gently. 

“Will.” He blinked and sat up, feeling far more rested than an hour long nap should be capable of. He realized that early morning sunlight was trickling in through the windows. 

“I guess I missed dinner.” 

“Unfortunately,” Hannibal affirmed, but he didn’t look angry. “I couldn’t bring myself to wake you.” Will was rather embarrassed, but grateful. 

“Thanks. Sorry, but thanks.” 

“It’s no trouble. I hope you’ll stay for breakfast?” 

“Yeah, of course.” Will followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the island, watching as Hannibal took up eggs and bacon and started up the coffee. 

“We didn’t get to discuss the case.” Hannibal said. 

“I wanted to apologize.” Will replied, before he could stop himself. Hannibal turned, an eyebrow raised questioningly. “For our last dinner together.” 

“Ah.” Hannibal turned away, and Will swallowed hard. “You were correct. I was making assumptions. Perhaps I should be apologizing to you.” 

“Even if that’s true,” Will pointed out. “It was rude of me to say so that way.” Hannibal paused, then finally turned to put a cup of coffee on the table. 

“Your apology is accepted.” He assured him, but before he could turn back to the food, Will pressed on. 

“And the implication wasn’t entirely accurate.” Hannibal tilted his head. 

“No?” 

“No.” 

Hannibal looked at Will the way he had that night many months ago, when the bathwater was bloody and the floor was stained. Back then, it made Will uncomfortable. Now... now Will wasn’t sure how it made him feel. 

“Go on.” Hannibal said quietly. Will took a slow swig of his coffee, burning his tongue in the process 

“The implication was that I wasn’t. Attracted to you, I mean.” Will continued. “That’s not accurate.” 

And now that it was out there, it sounded absurd. Sick even. Hannibal was, after all, a serial killer. He spoke every other day in class about the brutality of his crimes, the deranged elegance, the dehumanization. 

Hannibal pointed Will’s own homicidal urges towards innocent people. He refused to consider them anything but innocent; people don’t deserve to die for taking the last Snicker’s bar after all. 

And he was Will’s _psychiatrist_. 

Hannibal smiled and Will took another sharp gulp of scalding coffee. 

“I see,” Hannibal said quietly, turning back to the food. Will fiddled with his cup, staring into the near-black liquid inside. 

“Am I the one who’s assuming now?” He said awkwardly. Hannibal laughed. 

“Not remotely.” He placed a plate of bacon and eggs in front of Will, and the profiler found himself looking at an expression of remarkable affection. 

\-- 

Will figures that, if one was interested in symbolism, that one would find his games with Hannibal to be wildly symbolic. 

Hannibal draws away from him, his knees straddling Will’s hips, and he eyes Will speculatively. Slowly, his hand moves from Will’s cheek to Will’s throat. The long fingers wrap around and squeeze just enough to make the breaths audible. 

Will wonders if he’s going to die. He knows his mind now moves in circles that are relatively concentric to Hannibal’s, but it only takes one misstep in that dance for all to come to a halt. Perhaps he’s made one mistake too many. Perhaps this is the end. 

If he was anything resembling sane, the prospect of dying might bother him. Instead, he finds that he can’t really bring himself to care enough to fight back. 

He closes his eyes and lets out one last sigh before Hannibal hums contentedly and all the air is completely cut off. 

There’s something freeing about handing over all the power to someone else. For a moment, Will is devoid of responsibility. Everything is in Hannibal’s palm, and that’s fine. More than fine. 

He fists the sheets beside him, his lungs burning and blood rushing in his ears. He feels Hannibal’s lips graze his own, as if the other man is tasting the fact that Will cannot breathe and will not do anything to change that. Hannibal’s tongue slips into Will’s mouth, grazing bitten skin on the inside of his lower lip. 

Adoring little bursts of color crash behind his eyelids, but before he passes out, Hannibal locks his mouth over Will’s and presses a lung full of air into him. Will wraps one arm around Hannibal’s neck, melting beneath him. 

He figures Hannibal would love it if every breath was like that for Will. If he only lived because Hannibal allowed it, if the only air he breathed was from Hannibal’s own lungs. 

He thinks he might love it too. 

There might be some symbolism in that. 


End file.
